Annual Report on the Working of
State Electricity Boards and Electricity Department, April 1999
Power and Energy Division, Planning Commission

Chapter 3: Physical Performance

3.1 Introduction

This Chapter reviews the physical performance of the electricity sector in the country, particularly that of the SEBs and the EDs. The parameters considered here are, installed capacity, addition to installed capacity, plant availability and capacity utilisation, generation and sales, auxiliary consumption, T and D losses, power purchased from other agencies, sector-wise sales of electricity, per capita consumption, progress in rural electrification, etc.

3.2 Capacity Mix and Capacity Utilisation

Annexures 3.1 to 3.9 give details of installed capacity, capacity addition, unit size-wise distribution of thermal capacity, plant availability, forced outages and plant load factor (PLF) of the thermal units.

3.3 Installed Generation Capacity

The total installed capacity of the electricity supply undertakings in the country increased from 84912.4 MW at the end of March, 1997 to 89090 MW as on 31st March, 1998. Out of the total capacity, 24.6% was hydel and the balance (76.4%) was thermal (including nuclear). Table 3.1 shows the position regarding ownership and mix of installed capacity. Out of the total installed generation capacity, 63.28% is owned by the States, 30.72% by the Centre and 6.0% by the private sector. This can be seen from Figure 3.1.

3.4 Capacity Addition

As against the target of addition of 30538 MW during the Eighth Plan, the addition to the capacity during this period was 16422.4 MW i.e. the achievement has been only 53.8% of the target.

Table 3.2

The average capacity addition achieved during 8th Plan works out to 3284.5 MW per annum as against the target of 6107.6 MW. About 14.8% of the total capacity addition in the Eighth Plan is accounted for by the hydel stations and the remaining by thermal units (including nuclear). Nearly, 51% of the addition in the capacity took place in the Central Sector, 41.2% in the State Sector and the rest in the private sector. The Central sector has achieved 65.2% of the Eighth Plan target. The corresponding figures for the State and private sectors are 45.8% and 45% respectively. It is obvious that the actual achievements have fallen well short of target in all the sectors.

The Ninth Plan envisages a capacity addition of 40245.2 MW which comprises 24.4% of hydro capacity and the balance 75.6 thermal capacity addition including nuclear power. Likely contribution from State sector, Central sector and Private sector is 26.7%, 29.6% and 43.7% respectively. The average capacity addition target per year works out to 8049 MW. As against this, the achievement during 1997-98 was 3226.5 MW and the likely achievement during 1998-99 is about 3300 MW.

3.5 Plant Availability and Capacity Utilisation (PLF)

The all-India plant availability of thermal units has varied between 72.8% and 79.4% during 1991-92 to 1997-98. Table 3.3 gives the plant availability for 1991-92 to 1997-98.

While the plant availability has remained 75-79% in the Eighth Plan, the average PLF of the thermal plants has shown a distinct improvement in this period. The average PLF increased from 55.3% in 1991-92 to 64.7% in 1997-98. There are wide variations in the PLF in various States. Table 3.4 gives the PLF for different regions and by ownership groups.

It is clear from the above Table that while the average PLF for the Central and private sectors has been higher than that of the State sector, it is the State sector that has registered maximum improvement in the PLF since 1991-92. Western and Southern regions generally continued to have higher PLF as compared to the All-India average. The Eastern and the North Eastern regions had much lower PLF. The region-wise PLF for 1991-92 and 1996-97 are shown in Figure 3.2.

3.6 Generation and Sales

Annexures 3.10 to 3.37 present a detailed account of generation, sales and related data in respect of the SEBs and EDs from 1992-93 to 1997-98 and projections for 1998-99 Table 3.5 brings out some of the salient features on the basis of information from different SEBs and EDs in the country.

As can be seen from Table 3.5, of the total electricity generated, nearly 27-30% is either used for auxiliary consumption or lost in the T and D process. These T and D losses also include losses due to theft . Also in the absence of adequate metering arrangements, these figures have an implicit element of inaccuracy. As a result of these losses, the SEBs and EDs are deprived of much needed revenue.

3.7 Auxiliary Consumption

The auxiliary consumption reported here is a weighted average of thermal and hydel plants for all the State sector. In the Eighth Plan period, it has remained in the range of around 7%. The auxiliary consumption in the State of Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal is higher than the national average. These are also the States where the share of coal based thermal generation in the total electricity generation is larger.

3.8 Power Purchase

Power purchases are from Public sector undertakings (PSUs) in the Central sector, private generators (wherever such agencies exist) and from neighboring States. The purchase of power as a proportion of total sales of all the utilities taken together was 51% in 1992-93, 59.53% in 1997-98 and estimated at 59.5% in 1998-99. The details of power purchase in this report (Annexures 3.18 to 3.23) include total purchases from Central sector and other sources, purchase as a percentage of total sales, purchase of power from Central sector as a percentage of total purchase and purchase from Central sector as percentage of total power availability. The results are summarised in Table 3.6.

 As can be seen from the Table above, the share of power purchased in total availability of power with the SEBs has increased over the years. All the SEBs and EDs depend upon other sources to meet their total requirements. The EDs of Goa and Pondicherry do not have their own generation and, therefore, rely totally on purchased power. Nearly three-fourth of the electricity purchased by the SEBs and the EDs was drawn from the Central PSUs till 1996-97. In 1997-98 and 1998-99, the share of Central sector in the total purchases of SEBs and EDs has started declining. One of the reasons for this may be because of their own better generation, improvement in PLF and to some extent due to the commissioning of private sector projects in few states.

3.9 T and D Losses

Over 82 billion Kwh of electricity was lost in Transmission and Distribution in various States in 1997-98. The T and D losses increased from 19.8% in 1992-93 to 23% in 1996-97. They are expected to decline to 22.1% in 1998-99. There are considerable inter-State variations. J and K has the highest T and D losses in the country with 47%. Delhi, Haryana and Orissa have also reported substantial losses. On the other hand, the losses in Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu are lower.

3.10 Electricity Sales

The sales of electricity increased from 213 Bkwh in 1992-93 to 293 Bkwh in 1997-98 representing annual growth rate of 6.6%. Table 3.7 shows the share of various categories of consumers in total sales by the SEBs and EDs from 1992-93 to 1997-98.

It is evident from the above that industry and agriculture account for over 62% of the total sales of electricity, with the share of industry being marginally higher than that of agriculture. The domestic sector accounted for nearly one-sixth of the total sales of electricity. In the States of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana and Karnataka 34-48% of the electricity is sold to the agriculture sector during 1997-98. Details of consumer category-wise sales are given in annexures 3.28 to 3.34

3.11 Sales Revenue Realised from Different Sectors

While the agriculture sector accounts for nearly one-third of the sales of the SEBs and the EDs, the sales revenue realised from this sector has been only 3.5% of the total revenue realisation during 1997-98 because of the subsidised tariff. Due to such subsidised tariff, the domestic and agriculture sectors taken together accounted for nearly 50% of the total sales of the SEBs and only about one-sixth of the revenue realised. On the other hand, industry and commercial sectors accounted for around 80% sale revenue whereas sales to these sectors have been in the range of 34-35%. Share of revenue realisation from agriculture and domestic sectors are given at annexure 3.35 and 3.36.

3.12 Per Capita Consumption

The per capita consumption of electricity in India increased from 178 Kwh in 1985-86 to 338 Kwh in 1996-97 registering an annual growth rate of 6.5%. There are large inter-State and inter-regional variations in the per capita electricity consumption. The inter-regional variations are shown in Table 3.8 and in Figure 3.3. The State-wise information can been seen from Annexure 3.38.

As against the all-India per capita electricity consumption of 338 Kwh in 1996-97, the per capita electricity consumption in the Eastern and North Eastern region has been only 215 Kwh and 107 Kwh respectively. On the other hand, Western, Southern and Northern regions have per capita electricity consumption of 521 Kwh, 361 Kwh and 304 kwh respectively. The inter-State trends show greater disparities between the States. States like Punjab and Delhi have per capita electricity consumption of 790 Kwh and 590 Kwh, whereas it is only 80-88 Kwh in States like Nagaland , Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh and about 145 Kwh in Bihar.

3.13 Power Supply Position

The overall deficit in electricity supply (energy) deteriorated from 7.8% at the begining of the Eighth Plan to 11.5% at the end of Eighth Plan. The deficit has been minimal in Meghalaya, and Himachal Pradesh and fairly large in the States of Bihar, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, as can be seen from Annexure 3.39.

3.14 Rural Electrification

Over 5 lakh villages out of more than 6 lakh villages in India have been electrified so far. As per the notification issued by Ministry of Power dated 28th October, 1997, " A village is deemed to be electrified if electricity is used in the inhabitated locality within the revenue boundary of the village for any purpose whatsoever". The data given in this Report is as per the earlier definition which was, "a village should be classified as electrified if electricity is being used within its revenue area for any purpose whatsoever". According to the information available, 13 States in the country have completed 100% village electrification. As per the latest estimates, the pumpsets potential in the country is 19.5 million. Around 11.8 million pumpsets have been energised, leaving a balance of 8 million pumpsets yet to be energised. State-wise details are given in Annexures 3.40 and 3.41.

It is clear that the physical performance of the SEBs and EDs, as indicated by some of the parameters has shown improvement during the period 1992-93 to 1998-99. The PLF has improved, the secondary oil consumption has declined. However, it is the deterioration of their financial performance, in spite of the better physical performance, which is a matter of concern. The financial health of the SEBs is discussed in the following chapter.